Circadian Rhythm
by Alien Emerald
Summary: Oneshot, Katniss and Gale, after Mockingjay. Her heart longs for him, her voice cries for him day and night, but she has done the unforgivable. She knows can never leave-so instead, she sings and waits for the day that he will finally return home.


She longed to hear a heartbeat other than her own. Emptiness, vast and unyielding, clung to the air like something physical. The shadows around her danced on the treetops and on the ground, making her heart flutter with each shift. She could hear the leaves as they brushed against each other, dancing like puppets to the wind. She could hear the quiver of fear coming from the softest eyes as they fell upon her, anticipating a move she was too solemn to even think to attempt. She could even hear the beetle as it shook in its shell; it's body clacking against a hollow tree as it made its decent into the smoky dark.

_Thud, thud, thud. _The heart beat with a slow and even rhythm. It was not mechanical like hers, but had a rhythm that made her throat ache to sing. She had tried to keep music held away from her heart. It was too dangerous, brought back too many memories. Just as he did.

The colors and shadows in the forest began to brighten as dawn approached. The soft grey spread across the sky, the dew from the previous night quivering on pregnant blossoms full from the moon, and she looked again towards the mountain for some sign that he had arrived. Some sign, maybe, that maybe he had changed him mind.

_Still is night_

_ The morning dawns_

_ The sun will light_

_ What you cannot_

She sang, her voice clear and so soft that with each note you could hear the beat of her heart in her voice as it shifted to the pump of blood, the violent push that even music didn't drown it out.

She waited, _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…. _But his voice did not come. Not from the mountains or the trees. Even the birds were silent, waiting for something to permeate the vast silence of her echoing voice through the forest, understanding now, after all these years, that she would continue.

_When I wake_

_ No blood inside_

_ Your heart will take_

_ Its place by mine_

The song repeated it's notes each time, but each time it became noticeably more hopeless and sad. Someone listening from afar would think that the voice would break and cry, or perhaps the person singing it was already dead—the echo emanating from the lost ghost, wandering the forest helplessly looking for her lost lover.

_ And if you fear_

_ I will run away_

_ Just turn your ear_

_ To the jabberjay_

Katniss was almost thirty now. Her life belonged with Peeta, but her heart had always and would always belong to Gale. He was faraway now, as far as he could be from her, yet the physical distance had done nothing to the incredible throbbing her heart felt every time she thought about him. His face, his hands, his voice. Every part of him brought back a stab of memory and love so strong she often fell to the ground, as if from a bullet, and oftentimes Peeta would rush over and put his arms around her, ask her what was wrong. She would nod and say she was okay, offer no explanation, and push him away because of the way his arms felt so wrong around her when she wanted Gale's so badly.

Her love for him scared her sometimes. Her entire life, lost in a matter of months, and nothing had ever been the same. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Even Finnick's death had affected her in some way, and each moment she found herself yearning to see their glorious faces again; to hold Prim, to hug her mother, to kiss Gale like she always longed to, to tell Finnick just how beautiful his son was. But they were gone.

_ They will sing_

_ My song to you_

_ There is no thing_

_ So pure and true_

The emptiness around her was all-consuming. She felt small and alone, almost more so than she had in years, and she knew that nothing in the world could make her feel differently unless Gale showed up and embraced her in his arms.

She arrived at their old meeting spot on the ridge. The flowers were bright and curiously strong in the early spring morning, the rocks wet and dark with moisture. Her heart fluttered clumsily when the brush moved, waiting for a leather boot to step forward, a casual smile to greet her. But it was just a rabbit, its brown fur quivering and swelling as it shivered, suddenly stained red as Katniss shot it through the heart for giving her false hope.

_ My heart will cry_

_ In longing to you_

_ When you will fly_

_ To start anew_

Cruel and impulsive, that is what she had become. The tears had yet to come, but come they did when the mockingjays began to copy the tune, knowing now that the song was over as they had so many times before. Their high-strung voices overlapped again and again as the song flew through the trees. Katniss resisted the impulse to begin shooting them down; this was her last chance to let him hear their song, the last chance for him to know that she was there.

Just as the sunlight reached the top of the trees, the notes began to change. The birds sang slower, deeper, and for a moment Katniss thought they were beginning to go back to another tune. But it was different than that…it was as if someone else was singing as well.

_**But know that I**_

_** Shall always return to you**_

_** Because I can light**_

_** What you never knew me to. **_

She turned to the voice, so deep and familiar, and saw his silhouette coming through the trees. The sunlight ran red in his veins, his boot-beat and silent tread drowning out the birds, the trees—everything. It was him. It was really him.

She ran to him, her eyes streaming, her voice in an entirely different world. But her arms closed around air, her lips pressed against the wind, and when she looked—truly _looked—_she knew that it was just another shadow.

She could see the shadow flying around the corner as the sunlit leaf shifted away, off to make someone else believe that love really could sing across a distance of something so vast—something so vast as the hate he had harbored for her for more than ten years, her efforts proven futile, his words heart numbingly cruel-that he would hear her song from so far away and come running, so sorry for being so cruel, when after all these years she couldn't even hear her own heart beat.

Only his. Somewhere, only his.


End file.
